


Lorem Ipsum

by Misaya



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Art, Awkward Kylo Ren, Bottom Kylo Ren, Contracts, Falling In Love, Humor, Lawyer Hux, Lawyers, M/M, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 11:28:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7047793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misaya/pseuds/Misaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux is a junior associate at Snoke & Associates' law firm, and Kylo is the intern he's hired on as his assistant. As part of Kylo's contract, he becomes another junior associate once the internship period is over, but unfortunately Kylo didn't read all the fine print.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lorem Ipsum

**Author's Note:**

> Art by the lovely the-pudding-is-a-lie ❤️❤️❤️

Kylo grumbled as he hefted the heavy lid of one of the office's many water dispensers and splashed in large handfuls of thinly sliced citrus fruits into the iced water. He'd spent the better half of the morning chopping assorted fruits and vegetables to dump into the myriad of water dispensers scattered around the large open floor plan of Snoke & Associates'. Phasma on the west side of the office only liked her water infused with quarter-inch-thick slices of Bartlett pear, but the problem was that Snoke, who'd established the entire law firm, was deathly allergic to Bartlett pear and refused to even write Kylo's salary check if Kylo didn't prepare another, separate water dispenser with cucumber and strawberry. 

He had gotten a little aggressive with the fruit knife left in the firm's kitchenette, and was sporting several nicks and cuts on his hands. He had been ready to dart into the bathroom and lick his wounds with a generous application of off-brand Band-Aids and expired Neosporin when Brendol Hux II, his actual supervisor, had called him over to his large desk on the east side of the office and informed him that he would find a basket of citrus fruits in the back that he wanted him to add to the water cooler by Hux's elbow.  

"Now," Hux had demanded, frowning when Kylo hesitated, looking haplessly at his smarting hands. "It would behoove you to remember that I actually sign your checks, Ren."  

And with that, Kylo had headed back to the kitchenette to wage another war with the fruit knife and the veritable mountain of grapefruits, lemons, and blood oranges Hux had assigned him to. 

"Thank you," Hux said now, distractedly tapping away at his laptop keyboard as Kylo plopped himself into the armchair across the desk and looked at his partner slash supervisor expectantly.  

"You're aware that chopping fruit for the water dispensers isn't my job, right?" Kylo asked, gritting his teeth, his stinging hands curling into ineffectual fists beneath the rim of the desk. "It's not in my job description." 

"True," Hux conceded, still tapping away. "But I would advise you to read Clause 3C of your contract. I believe it stipulates that you, as an intern to Snoke & Associates, are responsible for the general maintenance and upkeep of office facilities, as well as promoting general morale. I would think restocking of the water dispensers falls under those duties as well." 

Kylo frowned, but Hux only met his steely gaze with a cool one of his own. 

"Yes, but the term also comes with an offer for junior associateship, and the internship period has already ended. With all due respect, we're technically peers."  

Hux rolled his eyes at Kylo, turning away from his laptop screen to pay Kylo his full attention. "True," he said, again, steepling his fingers and looking across the broad expanse of mahogany at Kylo. "But, if you'll carefully go back and read Section 14, Clause 17b, you would also see that the intern is expected to undergo training to hire another intern, complete with the application and interview process. As of this moment, I have not received any notice that another intern with the appropriate qualifications has been found." He fixed Kylo with a beady eye. "A word to the wise, Ren," he warned, clearly an indication that the conversation had come to a close. "Read all the fine print before you proceed. especially if you'd like a position in contract law." 

Kylo pouted. "How do you know so much about the intern contract, anyway?" he griped, getting to his feet; Phasma was calling him over with a few frantic gestures. Probably hadn't sliced her pears thinly enough, Kylo thought with more than a touch of bitterness. He would be more than happy to never see another Bartlett pear for as long as he lived. 

"Simple," Hux said, shrugging and turning back to his laptop. "I wrote the contract."

* * *

 

The subway ride home took two hours when it should have only taken twenty-five minutes, something about railways being broken down, trains running behind schedule, the general lack of efficiency of government employees as a whole. By the time Kylo trudged through his front door at 7:06 PM, he was rather irritable. He shoved his key into the lock, twisting the tumblers with a rolling, grating noise, and shoved the door open equally as unceremoniously, muttering to himself about his asshole supervisor, the asshole law firm, his asshole father who'd singlehandedly necessitated a long and painful official name change to avoid any possible association with the man who had been, somehow, successfully evading the long-reaching talons of the IRS for the better half of Kylo's lifetime. His father's tax evasion had gotten so bad that some of the billboards in the seedier parts of major cities had taken to using his image as an advertisement campaign for equally shady tax lawyers. 

Admittedly, Kylo was impressed by Han's elusiveness. But it certainly hadn't helped him find any good apartments. He had still been in the process of legally changing his name when he'd first started searching, and the first five landladies had looked at him over the tops of their wire-rimmed spectacles, looked down disparagingly at his application form, and informed him with a stern tut that they didn't trust the legitimacy of his credit rating. 

As it was, Kylo had been all but forced into signing a lease in a cockroach-infested hovel on the south side of the city. He was fairly sure that his neighbors were growing a veritable forest of marijuana on the fire escape, and was all but certain that his heavily tattooed landlord belonged to the mafia, but utilities were free, rent was cheap, and Kylo had long ago cracked the password to 214A's Netflix account (it had been 1234). It wasn't too bad, considering. 

He tossed a Hungry Man Salisbury steak TV dinner into the microwave and popped open a bottle of Heineken with a hiss of carbonation and a sigh, waiting for the dinner to defrost and heat to some point of edibility. The sagging cushions of his couch creaked wildly under his weight as he plopped himself down, resting his aching feet, and Kylo thought with a savage sense of bitterness that Hux had probably never ever had to live in any sort of discomfort whatsoever. 

"I wrote the contract," Kylo mocked in a whiny drawl reminiscent of his supervisor as he tore the cellophane top off his 99 cent meal, nearly burning his fingers in the process as a large cloud of steam rose up. The meat was overcooked, the sauce bland, the suspicious thing in the corner trying to masquerade as mashed potatoes was failing even more than Kylo had expected it would, but the fizz and bitterness of the Heineken made it somewhat palatable. The alcohol softened him at the edges, until, about halfway through an episode of Arrow, the remains of his TV dinner pushed aside for the cockroaches to dance over, Kylo had to admit to himself that what Hux had done had been brilliant. 

He'd looped the hapless intern (see: Kylo himself) into a knot, thus retaining the imbalance of power that had been present since Kylo had started working at Snoke & Associates, and it would continue to remain that way unless Kylo could find someone to fill his shoes. Hux was definitely craftier than Kylo had given him credit for, and he sipped at the last dregs of foam at the bottom of the bottle as he contemplated his next move. 

Clearly, he would have to find an intern. There was no getting around that. But, aha! A light bulb seemed to illuminate the room (actually, it was just a frenzy of passing police sirens right outside his window). Hux had said to make sure he read all the fine print before proceeding with any actions, and this seemed like just the kind of fuckery he might be into. It was quite possible, and, in fact, Kylo thought, more than probable, that Hux had added some stipulation on page 67 of the 75 page contract, set in 8.5-pt Arial Narrow, that would absolve him of the whole issue. 

Yes, that was just the ticket, Kylo thought, smiling gleefully as he headed to the refrigerator to crack open another beer. He retrieved his laptop from his messenger bag and nudged at the touchpad, hastily typing in his password and bringing up the electronic copy of the contract he'd received the very day he'd signed on for the internship. He took a sip of his fresh, cold Heineken, enlarged the text so that it was something far more manageable, and began the long process of reading. He had a free weekend, and he was more than willing to put aside the Netflix series he'd been planning to binge watch in favor of searching through the contract to find something that Hux had fucked up.

Page 1 of 75, Kylo thought to himself, cracking his knuckles and settling down to work. Surely a mistake would present itself in no time. 

As it was, by the time Sunday night rolled around, Kylo's eyes were bloodshot from poring over the document on his screen. He had a hideous crick in his back, Hungry Man dinner trays of various emptinesses were stacked on the table next to his laptop, and beer bottles littered the surrounding area. Not even the cockroaches dared to touch him; they seemed to be aware that the apparent master of their humble domicile had embarked upon a heroic quest. An odyssey, one might call it, perhaps destined to last just as long as the classical one. 

Page 75 of 75 came and went for the second time, and, much like the first time, Kylo had to admit defeat. He was thoroughly unable to find any mistakes, any redundancies, any self-distractions that Hux had made. There wasn't even a single typo or grammatical error that Kylo could see. 

The fact that Hux had, once upon a time, typed this all up on a company-issued laptop and resized the font to something only ants could read, had Kylo frothing with irritation. He was quite sure the man had also probably been grinning and laughing to himself, maybe giving himself a few ill-deserved pats on the back for his good work. 

But the joke was on him, truly, Kylo thought grimly as he exited out of the document and rubbed at his aching eyes. Kylo had read every single sentence that Hux had penned, not once but twice, and was disappointed to say that he had discovered absolutely nothing that would help him out of his current position. The stipulations of the deal had, as Hux had affirmed for him last Friday, been written out quite clearly, and there was no getting around them. 

Kylo had also discovered that Hux's contract included a vaguely sketched outline of how one could not hold the law firm, nor Hux personally, responsible for any misconduct involving nuclear weapons that said applicant might undergo during the internship period. It was, admittedly, a bit oddly placed, right between the section detailing the explicit banning of employee-employer romantic and/or sexual fraternization and the section involving proper use of the communal kitchenware, but Kylo was far too exhausted to question Hux's organizational decisions. 

He admitted defeat at around 7:12 PM that Sunday night, and sighed as he thought of the wasted weekend behind him. The empty Hungry Man trays went into the trash, and he reluctantly collected up his beer bottles to put in the recycling later. Hux's contract was waterproof, and Kylo could have punched several holes in the wall in despair, but he had the safety deposit to think of, and so refrained from doing so.

* * *

 

As though he knew exactly what Kylo had been up to the past weekend, Hux smiled uncannily at him when he walked into the office the Monday morning. He then took a pointed look at his watch, which was probably a knockoff Rolex, Kylo thought grimly to himself as he set down his messenger bag on the chair Hux had so graciously allotted him, and informed Kylo that he was three minutes late. 

"Sorry," Kylo grunted back, frowning as he eyed the massive stacks of paperwork that already populated the tiny, rickety folding table Hux had brought in for him from the storage room. It had seen better days, was practically standing on its las legs (and, in fact, it truly was; one of them had already been replaced with a cracked walking cane picked up at Goodwill). "Subway was delayed. Some sort of mix up with rail changes at the station."

Hux eyed him icily, but, as though feeling the cold eye of Snoke upon their little corner of the office and thinking better of it, shrugged and told Kylo that perhaps he might want to consider taking an earlier train next time to avoid such, ah, discrepancies in scheduling. Public transportation was, after all, rather notorious for being unreliable. 

"You can get started," Hux said, waving magnanimously over the piles of documents that Kylo would be filing and affixing Hux's signature to. "The cabinets are to your right" - Kylo looked, found the looming black cabinets on the opposite wall - "and the files are sorted systematically by service provided and alphabetically by business. Though I think that perhaps you may want to have a crack at rearranging the preexisting files already in there; it's been quite a while since the documentation was last cleared out, and I'm sure not everyone in the office is nearly as meticulous." As I, went unspoken, and even as Kylo watched, another harried-looking paralegal hurried past the cabinets and haphazardly stuffed in another set of files in what appeared to be some random location. 

He turned back to Hux, his mouth already open to protest this cruel and unusual form of punishment, but Hux was already cradling the corded phone's receiver to his ear, apparently about to make a Very Important Phone call. Kylo huffed in his general direction, but tugged the first stack of documents towards him with a weary sigh and readied the black ink pad and the large rubber stamp engraved with Hux's signature. The H and the B looped and twisted in flourishing curlicues, and Kylo wrinkled his nose at the utter extravagance of it all. They weren't living in the eighteenth century where people still signed their names with peacock quills and ink mixed to the consistency of red wine. This was a travesty, the whole office was a farce, and yet. 

There was something about Hux's smug, self-satisfied look that Kylo wanted to make disappear. He was sure that a large part of it probably had something to do with his, as of yet, frightening ineptitude to find some other hapless victim to take his place and, by default, his lack of detail orientation, and he was keen to prove Hux completely three thousand percent incorrect. He could do it, certainly he could. He would not allow himself to be tormented for a moment longer than was utterly necessary. 

His sense of triumph could not be dulled, not even when he gave himself a particularly vicious paper cut with the edge of some contract involving an organic pet food business and some company that did diaper commercials. There were, after all, plenty of online job boards that he could use to his advantage, and he could pin up flyers around town, on lampposts and trees and by the automatic doors of the grocery stores. In this economy, everyone would be needing jobs, and all Kylo would have to do would be to sift through the massive pile of applications that would, no doubt, come pouring in, find someone who was even remotely competent, and that would be that. 

Ha! It would be easy! he thought to himself as he almost began to feel something dangerously close to cheer, unaware of Hux's curiously scrutinizing gaze falling heavy on him. Kylo had zero doubt that he would be made junior associate, officially, by the end of the month. His grin bordered on positively manic as he thought of his tiny workspace on Hux's desk expanding to half of the mahogany, as was his due, at Hux's horrified glare whenever one of Kylo's perfectly sharpened pencils (courtesy of the new intern, of course) rolled over onto his delineated side of the desk. It was all Kylo could do to stop rubbing his hands together and cackling gleefully.

"Something to your amusement, then?" Hux asked, frowning as he finally verbalized his concern. 

"Just thinking about things," Kylo said, smiling cheerfully, and was not even the least bit perturbed when Hux informed him that he had to go back and redo the last twenty-three documents; Kylo had stamped them upside down. The end of his days as an intern was coming, and he could taste the revenge and retribution layered sweetly on his tongue.

* * *

 

He posted the job listing on all number of online job boards that he could think of that evening, even going the extra mile and reaching out to old university contacts he was connected to on his LinkedIn profile, which was going dusty with disuse and still had a picture of him from high school that his mother had insisted he use as his profile. The submissions began trickling in, slowly but surely and then a veritable flood all at once over the course of the week, until Hux finally snapped and told him to silence his mobile or he would have it, and Ren, forcefully removed from the premises. 

"You can't fire me," Kylo said, without looking up from his phone screen as he read the latest applicant's qualifications (see: none) and flicked it into his trash folder without a second thought. "We're peers."

"We are not," Hux all but snarled across the table before ordering Kylo to pick up the sushi order he'd called in for the office that morning. Kylo didn't even bat an eyelash, perhaps smirked a bit at Hux, even, as he neatly caught the set of company car keys Hux hurled directly at his head and ambled out to the parking garage underneath the building. 

Poe Dameron, Finn Bordereaux, Rey Clancy, he thought to himself, running the names along the inside of his teeth as he slotted the key into the ignition of one of Snoke & Associates's Mercedes and turned. The polished wood-paneled dashboard - which Kylo himself had cleaned with chamois cloth, one hundred and forty-four strokes precisely - gleamed and purred beneath his hands as he reversed out of the allotted space and calmly maneuvered the car towards the sushi spot downtown. Poe Dameron, Finn Bordereaux, Rey Clancy, Poe Dameron, Finn Bordereaux, Rey Clancy. They all had good, solid-sounding names that would probably look good on the creamy legal stationery that Snoke & Associates favored, and they all looked to have fairly decent qualifications. 

And, really, Kylo thought to himself as he dug around in his pocket for his wallet - Hux had neglected to pay ahead, give him money for the order, or entrust him with the company expenses card - how qualified did one need to be to push around paper and alphabetize things just the way Hux wanted them? Not qualified at all. He'd arrange interviews with them at their earliest availabilities, hire one and inform the others that unfortunately the position had already been filled, and that would be that. 

He could feel the smooth, gleaming grain of his hard-earned mahogany desk underneath his palms now, could already see the little metal placard he would place on his desk with his name engraved on it. For all this, he could almost ignore the fact that he was growing nauseous from the combination of generic air freshener (pine with a hint of lemon) and the vague saltness of spilt soy sauce somewhere in one of the plastic bags riding shotgun in the detailed leather seat beside him. 

He smiled as he cheerfully cut someone off, ignoring the honks and irate shouts behind him as he pulled into the parking garage, haphazardly crossing over three lanes of traffic with no thoughts as towards the consequences. Yes, indeed, he would have Hux squirming and sharing his desk in little to no time.

* * *

 

Unfortunately, it turned out that Hux was not above poking around through other people's belongings, and by the time Kylo staggered back into the office, tired from lugging the three heavy bags of sushi up the eight flights of stairs from the parking garage, he quickly discovered that Hux had been going through the applicants for the job pool as well. Of course he would have been, Kylo thought with a huff as he set down the bags on one of the long tables along the opposite wall; Hux was, after all, unfortunately much too involved in the firm's electronic doings for his own good, including but not limited to the firm's Twitter (@Sn0ke), Facebook page, and any and all low level employment opportunities. Which was, of course, how he'd picked up Kylo, a fresh faced graduate from Fletcher, and he'd slapped him with the 75-page contract and the promise to move up quickly in the company, they were always looking for young blood to bring in for fresh innovative ideas, good dental plan, blah blah blah.

He just hadn't known at that time, confidently signing the contract with a ballpoint pen at reception downstairs, how irritating Hux would be as a supervisor. 

"You can't use Dameron," Hux informed him as Kylo sat back down with a paper plate of California rolls and some grilled chicken. 

"Why not?" Kylo asked, frowning as he stuffed a forkful of rice into his mouth. "And you shouldn't be looking through my stuff, anyway. Invasion of privacy."

"On a company device, on company grounds," Hux countered smoothly, popping a piece of salmon sashimi into his mouth and wiping at his lips with a folded napkin. He was dressed in a soft blue dress shirt that complemented his eyes, and his coppery hair was curling over his forehead as though he'd forgotten to comb it properly after his morning shower. In fact, if his face hadn't been fixed in such an abject frown, Kylo thought to himself, he'd actually be quite attractive. As though sensing Kylo's thoughts, Hux's frown deepened, and he reached up to push the errant curls of hair back into place with a forceful gesture. "And as to why you can't use him, he's been applying for positions here for years now. Any time he sees a job opening for Snoke & Associates, anywhere, his resume is infallibly one of the first to show up. He looks good, automatically, doesn't he? Law school graduate from Loyola, passion for contract law, captain of the debate team, etcetera. But I'm sure you've read that."

Actually, Kylo hadn't; he'd only gotten as far as the first line, where Mr. Dameron informed him he was a Loyola graduate with a cum laude designation, and that had been enough for him, as far as Kylo was concerned. He was rather impressed that Hux remembered all this. 

"But if you had bothered to look into the company hiring records at all, you would have found that Mr. Dameron's application has been reviewed, and rejected, multiple times due to, ah, extenuating circumstances." Hux patted at his lips again. "He fails the automatic background checks," Hux finished simply, without waiting for Kylo to ask why he'd been rejected. "Felonious activity. You understand, I'm sure." 

Kylo's face fell, and he buried himself into his sushi again. Felonious activity, indeed! Though it was quite possible that Hux was lying to him, or perhaps not telling the full truth. Maybe by felonious activity, Hux really meant that Poe had opened his brother's mail once or something like that. Surely it couldn't be that bad. 

He munched on another California roll as he pulled up Poe Dameron's application folder which was, as Hux had suggested, rather littered with files documenting his separate attempts to obtain a job at the firm. Kylo's eyes scanned through the pages of text, scrutinizing the fine print as Hux had emphasized, and oh! horror of horrors! found that Poe had indeed been convicted of growing several strains of marijuana on his apartment's fire escape and had even spent the better half of a year in jail. 

So much for that candidate. Kylo reluctantly deleted the enthusiastic email Poe had sent to accompany his application and tried to ignore the way Hux was smirking across the table at him.

* * *

 

However, come the following Monday, after a weekend spent looking at and sifting through a myriad of hopeful yet ultimately hopelessly unqualified applicants, it appeared as though Hux was trying to turn over a new leaf. Perhaps he'd converted to some religion, or maybe he'd spontaneously decided not to be as much of a supercilious asshole as he had been, because that Monday, Kylo found him surprisingly tolerable. (If one had had the presence of mind to ask Hux, however, he would merely roll his eyes at you and tell you that HR checks were coming up, and it really would not do for his record if Kylo were to complain about him.)

He assured Kylo, in something of a grudging tone, that Kylo wouldn't need to see hide nor hair of the fruit knife that week, and could instead spend his working hours looking for prospective interns and familiarizing himself with some of the more important deals the firm was associated with. This was another little jab at Kylo, an implication that Hux did not believe Kylo had done any research on the law firm before applying (and, in fact, he hadn't), but Kylo had long ago learned to brush off Hux's little snits in favor of other things. 

After being assigned all of the firm's menial tasks and little assignments, all the free time Kylo suddenly found himself saddled with was almost overwhelming. He dawdled as he flicked through the applications, more and more of which were pouring in at every passing moment, took a leisurely stroll to the kitchenette to pour himself another heavily sweetened coffee sometime around midmorning without Hux even blindly holding out his own mug for Kylo to refill. 

In short, it was downright pleasant, and Kylo even found his feelings towards the other man rapidly softening. Perhaps it was true what they said, he thought as he sipped at his milky coffee and tapped absently at his laptop, that absence made the heart grow fonder. Hux's new leniencies would certainly not be forgotten, and Kylo even thought that perhaps he might agree to a 40-60 share of the large mahogany desk that he so deeply coveted. He could be generous, too, after all. 

Once lunch had been eaten and Kylo had meticulously gone through both Finn's and Rey's applications, he wandered out into the corridor outside the law firm and dialed the two phone numbers he'd scribbled onto the back of his hand in messy ballpoint script. Hux had frowned at him for that, but had said nothing, not even a crack about how unprofessional he looked. 

The first number Kylo dialed was Mr. Bordereaux's, pacing to and fro along the carpeted corridor as he mentally rehearsed the few-sentence speech he had tapped out on a Word document back on his laptop, sitting innocently on the desk. Perhaps he should have brought the laptop out with him, balanced it in one hand and held the phone with the other. For the life of him, Kylo couldn't remember the words, and when a voice in his ear suddenly started speaking, he blabbed out things along the general gist of his little soliloquy, haphazard words all coming together in a jumble. 

"Very interested in your resume and your qualifications, I see you went to school at Loyola or, no, wait, sorry, that was another candidate, haha, as you can see it's a really competitive job and - erm, Mr. Bordereaux?" Roughly halfway through Kylo's utter botch of the interview offer, he realized that he was speaking to a robotic monotonous narrator, who informed him blankly that the number he had reached had been disconnected. 

Kylo frowned, pulled the phone away from his ear, glanced at the screen and to the first number scribbled onto his hand and back again. They matched, but Kylo wasn't taking any chances with the potential savior of his future. Carefully, he dialed again, mouthing each digit to himself as he tapped his screen. Again, the same result, the same robotic narrator. 

He sighed to himself as he made a mental note to send the man an email. He would have to bring it up with him in the body of the text, and Kylo was not particularly skilled at the art of human interaction. Perhaps he could insert a little offside question, 'Oh, I noticed that your phone number isn't working? Perhaps you mistyped it into the appropriate field on your application? And on your resume and cover letter?' No, no, that sounded far too passive aggressive. Kylo would have to figure out another way. Maybe read one of those 'How to Make Friends and Influence People' style books. 

Ms. Clancy's number went straight to voicemail, but it was heartening to hear that her voicemail message at least stated that she was the person Kylo had been hoping to reach. You've reached Rey! she chirruped into the phone. Leave me a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can! The initial adrenaline rush of communicating with other people had faded already, and Kylo delivered his brief stint much more painlessly, offering her an interview at the firm at her earliest convenience. For his sake, he hoped she was early. 

"Well? How goes it?" Hux asked him as Kylo clicked his phone off and plopped back into his seat ten minutes later. The springs of the creaking swivel chair groaned beneath his weight, the leather covering straining at the seams, and Kylo wondered if he would be allowed to pawn off this decrepit-looking object onto the new intern. His fingers flew over the keys of his laptop as he sent an email shooting out into the void where, hopefully, F. Bordereaux would read it in due time and get back to him. "Any luck?" 

"Not yet," Kylo said, sighing, shrugging as he deleted another thirteen applications from a variety of undergraduate students whose majors had nothing to do with law whatsoever (see: biology, theater, critical theory). "But soon, I'm hoping." He pasted a brave smile on his face. 

"Right," Hux said, sighing and pinching at the bridge of his nose. He was wearing thick, dark-framed glasses today, presumably he had a migraine of some sort if the painkillers he'd popped early in the morning were any indication, and Kylo's new feelings of magnanimousness had him wanting to reach over the mahogany expanse and massage his temples for him. It was something his mother had done, once upon a long ago time, and the memories filled Kylo with no small amount of tender nostalgia. 

He shook his head roughly in the next instant, causing Hux's eyes to fly toward him with undisguised curiosity and more than a hint of worry. No. Definitely not. Hux and 'tender nostalgia' most certainly did not belong in the same sentence, and Kylo shoved the wayward thoughts into the very back of his mind to perhaps be resumed at a later date.

* * *

 

As it turned out, a later date happened to be the following Friday when Ms. Clancy - call me Rey, please! - walked into the firm for her interview with Kylo. Mr. Bordereaux had yet to reply, and, according to MailTrack's fine services, Kylo noted with a frown that he had yet to even open the email requesting his available schedule for an interview. It was certainly rude, not good etiquette, and he held open the door to an unused conference room while he thought to himself that he really needed to stop thinking like Hux. 

Hux's attitude towards him had mellowed even further, if that was possible, running only at an extreme level of irritation rather than the usual catastrophic. He had given Kylo papers and briefs to look over rather than to file (though, of course, Kylo had to file them back into their appropriate folders after he was done reading), and, in short, hadn't made Kylo's experience at the firm any more miserable than it had to be, something for which Kylo was rather grateful. The subway delays home now no longer seemed so bad, and the cockroaches sharing his living space seemed to become downright hospitable. Kylo refused to think about what the implications of Hux's influence were, and instead smiled politely across the dusty boardroom table at Rey. 

As though his stare had prompted her, she burst out into a little speech that had the overwhelming air of being staged, practiced again and again into a mirror. "Hi, I'm so glad that you gave me the opportunity to come and talk with you andIjustwantedtosay -"

Kylo held up a hand, effectively cutting her off. "Don't be so nervous," he said, smiling again and trying to come off as reassuring, but her somewhat frightened looking stare was indicative of his abject failure. "Really, this interview is just to see that you're not, you know, a slacker or destructive towards property or anything like that." Rey, whose manicured fingernails were chewed to bits, instantly stopped picking at a small splinter of wood protruding from the surface of the table. Kylo nodded approvingly. 

"As I'm sure you know," he continued, "the job entails general maintenance and upkeep of office facilities, as well as promoting general morale. The experience you have at Snoke & Associates will also be beneficial towards a furthered career in law in the future, and if I'm not mistaken, you'll be working under Phasma, who unfortunately could not be here today to help conduct the interview." (Actually, she was here today, tapping furiously on her keyboard and blowing frighteningly large bubblegum bubbles. As she was the next junior associate up in line for an intern, Kylo had all but begged her to help with the interview, but she had waved him away impatiently and told him that, per the contract Hux had so cleverly written up, he was responsible for all things involving the position.) 

Rey stared at him blankly. Kylo cleared his throat. The water cooler in the corner bubbled wth water that had probably been there since the Triassic, given the layer of dust that had been allowed to accumulate on the table between them. 

"So..." he said, aware that this was supposed to be an interview and not just a shoo-in, "what qualifications do you have that you feel make you the best suited candidate for the position?" 

Rey's face brightened. An easy question, surely! Kylo settled back in his chair to listen to what she had to offer, already somewhat mentally checking out. 

"I'm a quick learner, highly organized, attention to detail..." Yes, Kylo was definitely drifting off.

"I'm also really good at secretarial tasks, did I ever tell you I was the receptionist in the building across the street?" - here, a point at the wall behind Kylo - "and I can type 93 words a minute though of course I listed that under relevant skills in my resume, which you've read, hahaha..." 

If Kylo craned his neck just a bit, he could see Hux frowning as he pored over documents at his desk. He was biting his lip. Kylo found himself wanting to bite it. He shook his head violently, trying to dispel the imagery. 

"Oh, and I'm, er, is there something wrong?"

Kylo jolted straight up in his chair, looking at her. She looked back at him, confused, more than a bit worried. 

"Did I say something wrong?" she asked, tentatively, chewing her lip and looking all but about to burst into tears. 

"Oh, no, no, not at all," he hastened to assure her. "Sorry, I just get twitches sometimes."

"Oh." Her face brightened again. "My friend told me about this special herb he grows that can help with twitches and all that sort of stuff," she offered. When Kylo said nothing, she took this as incentive to continue. "And he also says that there are all these different strains that you can try, with different flavors, and he grows them on his fire escape..."

Kylo tuned out again. His thoughts drifted towards Hux outside, and to puzzling out why the atmosphere between them had so recently shifted. It would be something he'd have to ask him.

* * *

 

At the end of the interview, during which Rey yapped about anything and everything specifically not related to law or why she wanted to work at Snoke & Associates, Kylo deemed her the best possible candidate for the job and hired her on the spot. She gasped with glee, her eyes round and excited, and Kylo smiled benevolently at her as he wondered how long it would take her to admit defeat in her battle with the fruit knife. He ushered her politely out of the boardroom and out of the office, walked her down the corridor to the elevators at the far end of the floor, and informed her that he would look forward to seeing her at work on Monday for her first official day as the firm's new intern. She waved cheerily at him as the doors closed with a soft swish in front of her, and Kylo let a sigh escape him as he turned and headed back to the office. 

"You look horrible," Hux informed him, blandly, directly, as Kylo plopped into the creaking swivel chair across from him. The documents he had been working on earlier had all been slotted into their individual manila folders into a wire rack at the corner of his desk, and Kylo toyed with the brightly colored sticky tabs as he replied. 

"She can talk," he said, a hideous understatement. "But she's good. I think she'll be a good fit here." 

"Good to hear," Hux said, distractedly tapping away at his laptop. Kylo checked the office clock, none too surreptitiously. It was going on five, and he was itching to leave. 

One minute passed. Two. Thoughts formed and dispersed in Kylo's mind. 

Three. The bright red second hand raced around the clock face. 

Four. "Do you want to get drinks or something?" Kylo blurted out, suddenly, and clearly Hux was as taken aback as he was, if his stunned expression was anything to go by as he looked up at Kylo. "You know, like, some sort of celebration?" he added, lamely. 

"What celebration?" Hux wanted to know, but he wasn't tapping on his laptop anymore, and Kylo took that as a good sign. 

"You know, as the last official day of my internship, I guess," Kylo said, shrugging. "On Monday I move up in the world."

"Ah," Hux said, smiling wryly. "I'll have to bring some sort of masking tape, divide the desk." He turned back to whatever document he was working on, and Kylo's brief moment of elation passed. 

Five minutes. Six.

Hux hit a key on his keyboard decisively before clicking a few times and closing the laptop. He placed it into his black messenger bag, which might have been the aristocratic, understated twin of Kylo's beat up one, clicked the buckles on the bag, and looked at Kylo expectantly. 

"Well?" he asked, frowning down at him. Kylo almost thought for a moment that Hux would offer him his hand. "Are we going or not? The crowds are going to be horrendous if we leave any later." 

Kylo's mood brightened again. He trotted obediently after Hux towards the elevator, smiling almost fondly down at the top of the other man's head, and thought privately to himself that perhaps Hux was a much nicer man than he'd given him credit for.

* * *

 

The bar Hux chose for them (named The Bar, in some fit of enthusiasm for meta irony, or something like that) a few blocks away from the office was one of those classy ones that Kylo had always peered into the windows of during his undergraduate days and resolutely spurned on account of it being too dark, too wood-paneled, too expensive. The smell of leather hung in the air, along with the smoky scent of Cuban cigars, and Kylo took deep breaths, as though the very sophistication of the place could dissolve straight into his bloodstream. 

The sleek leather of the booth they slid into squeaked slightly under Kylo's weight, and Hux pushed a glossy menu across the equally glossy table to him. The items had no prices next to them, and a surreptitious check on Yelp also did not offer much other than the fact that this particular bar was of the three-dollar sign variety. Kylo was beginning to worry, chewing on his lip and wondering if perhaps it would look bad to order the "cheapest bottled beer you have," when Hux informed him to stop worrying, it was his treat. 

"What?" Kylo squawked, drawing the attention of two distinguished-looking older gentlemen sitting in a booth across from them. They frowned disapprovingly at him, their eyes scanning down his outfit for casual Friday - a dress shirt that had seen better days, a pair of faded jeans, red Converse - and found him lacking. Hux, of course, fit impeccably in with his surroundings. "No, no," he protested, but even he could hear that his protest was a weak one. "That wouldn't be fair."

He could have gone on, his wallet and bank account despising him the whole way, but a waiter had already come by to take their orders and Hux was waving at the menu and asking him what he wanted. Kylo was so flustered that he waved back at Hux and informed the waiter he'd have whatever Hux was having. 

They made stilted conversation for a solid twenty minutes, Kylo blathering on to Hux, much like Rey had done, and Hux nodding and saying "Hmm" quite often, much like Kylo had done. Kylo was grateful when their food and drinks came and he finally had something to occupy his hands and mouth. 

"Do you like it?" Hux asked him, after a few moments during which Kylo somehow managed to scrape his china plate with his knife once. The steak had been cooked medium-rare, pink and tender on the inside, and Kylo, for the life of him, couldn't remember when he'd ever had anything of such quality. "I usually come here Friday evenings. A bit of a tradition, I suppose." 

"I do like it," Kylo affirmed, though the Scotch, neat, was an unaccustomed taste that he wasn't quite sure he liked yet. It burned as he sipped at it, the heat of the alcohol pooling in his belly. "Thank you." 

"Time to appreciate the finer things in life, Ren," Hux said, smiling, not unkindly. "You are moving up in the world, after all." 

Kylo smiled back, and told Hux he would definitely consider the advice.

* * *

 

The Bar, too, seemed to pass on its weekly tradition to Kylo, and he started to spend Friday afternoons watching the ticking of the clock from his new vantage point directly to Hux's left. He would wait until it hit 4:30, at which point he would instruct Rey to file away the materials he had taken out from the cabinets earlier that day, and he would patiently wait some more until he could justify nudging Hux and reminding him that they didn't get paid overtime. 

Hux would frown at him, but Kylo would clear his throat, look pointedly down at the blazer and dress slacks he had purposely adorned himself in that day, and the tiniest hint of a smile would appear on Hux's face before it was whisked away in favor of finishing up whatever official correspondence or contract he was working on at that particular instant. 

4:45 would roll around. Kylo would adjust the things on his half of the desk, making sure all his pencils were sharpened and aligned just so in the metal canister on the corner, that the contracts he himself had been assigned were arranged in order of relevance and deadline, that the packages of snacks he kept in one drawer were sealed tightly so that no ants or cockroaches or other such vermin would be tempted to infest the desk that he still thought of as solely Hux's. 

By 4:55, they would be the only two left in the office, and, away from Snoke's prying eyes, Kylo would slump over the desk in defeat and watch as Hux gleefully continued typing. Clearly the man had a knack for soft torment, was probably quite skilled at interrogation, and Kylo would allow himself to groan a few times in utter despair as he waited impatiently for Hux to finish. 

Then, when Hux had deemed Kylo had waited long enough, he would announce that he was finished, might lecture Kylo on being impatient, but they would spill out of the office, eager for the weekend ahead, the heels of their polished shoes clicking on the cracked sidewalks as they headed towards The Bar. Kylo had returned Hux's treat with his first paycheck, had nearly fallen over at the cost (surely two steak dinners and two drinks couldn't be a justifiable $132!) but had swallowed it all the same. The kind smile Hux had given him had been more than worth it. 

Their relationship continued, developed gently with the passing weeks and the small routines they established among themselves became comforting rituals that had Kylo inadvertently smiling every time Hux so much as looked at him. This cheered Kylo up so much that he could even ignore the fact that, as of yet, he had not yet received his coveted metal placard proclaiming him an official junior associate of the firm. 

For the first time in his legal career, Kylo thought that perhaps he was finally becoming comfortable with the whole thing. 

* * *

That was all well and good, and Kylo thought they were having real bonding opportunities, whatever that meant, until one particular Friday when the Scotch was hitting Kylo harder than it usually did.

"You what?" Hux stared at him, his expression unreadable through the dim lighting of The Bar. His fork and knife were positioned over his medium-rare steak, ready to cut into the tender meat, but Kylo could see even from across the table that the utensils were quivering. From nervousness or rage or perhaps far too much caffeine that day, Kylo wasn't sure, but none of those options boded well for him. 

He swallowed roughly, wishing that the burn of the Scotch had done something more to drown out the overwhelming impulse inside him. As it was, there was no undo button, nothing that could salvage the mess he'd gotten himself into, and he'd just have to grit his teeth and bear it.

"I said I...I think I like you, and asked if maybe you might want to date sometime," Kylo said, stammering, flushing to the roots of his hair and toying with an asparagus spear. He didn't particularly want to look at Hux, didn't want to see the disappointment and irritation that Kylo had worked so hard to dissipate return to his eyes. 

After another moment of silence, Hux sighed, laid his knife and fork down neatly on either side of his plate. "Look," he began, in the blank tone he'd used when scolding hapless delivery boys who had misplaced a crate of the legal stationery the firm used, "I can see how these out-of-office meetings of ours may be construed as something similar to courtship, perhaps, but I can assure you that was not my intention when they first began. I meant them to be considered as a friendly gathering, an acknowledgment that you have indeed started to look and act the part of the legal professional. We work together, Kylo. This would be wildly inappropriate." 

Kylo was staring down at his Scotch, which he'd started to develop a slight taste for under Hux's careful tutelage. His eyes were burning, now, and he blinked quickly, forcefully. He'd always been far too emotional for his own good, and surely Hux would take it as a sign of weakness. 

"Sorry," he muttered, gruffly, stuffing another piece of steak into his mouth in the futile hope that Hux wouldn't hear how his voice had suddenly gotten hoarse. "I guess I've been looking far too into things." He left so much unsaid, like the fact that he'd been admiring Hux's smile for the better part of three months; the fact that he could no longer see an advertisement for Dior cologne and not think of Hux; the fact that, somehow, somewhere along the way, he had fallen hopelessly, desperately, in love.

The rest of the dinner was silent, their goodbyes stilted as they parted at the corner, and Kylo collapsed into bed the instant he arrived home without bothering to take off his clothes. He felt like dying, resigning in disgrace, and tried not to think with dread on the weeks and months ahead.

* * *

 

The days passed slowly. Too slowly, each second feeling like an eternity as it slipped away, and Kylo was only too aware of the slow passage of time, exacerbated by Hux's constant presence at his right elbow and the soft smell of Hux's cologne, something musky and understated, like freshly washed flannel, that haunted him throughout the day and pervaded his dreams at night. 

If they hadn't been exactly on speaking terms during the duration of Kylo's internship, they definitely were not on speaking terms now, and Hux only spoke to Kylo when absolutely necessary or when he had to remind him in an exasperated voice to please remove his belongings from Hux's half of the desk. 

Tensions ran high between them, and, needless to say, when that Friday rolled around, Hux stood up to leave without saying anything to Kylo. Kylo allowed a good fifteen minutes to pass before leaving himself, and had to fight himself every step of the way to the subway, convincing himself against his baser desires to go and pop by The Bar, see if maybe Hux was there. 

But no, that avenue of communication and mutual friendship had come and gone, Kylo had burned all his bridges, and the cockroaches were not particularly impressed with his soliloquy on how misunderstood he was and how he would have taken it all back just to get those few moments with Hux every Friday evening back again. 

He moped and cried himself to sleep at night, and when he came into the office with red eyes and blotchy cheeks, he chalked it up to allergies. Hux looked blatantly unconvinced, but accepted his excuse anyway.

* * *

 

A thick manila envelope greeted his side of the desk on a bleak Tuesday morning during which Kylo was sure he was going to die. He hadn't slept well the night before, replaying the conversation with Hux over and over again in his mind, editing out the calm elevator music that had been playing in The Bar, maybe writing a happy ending or two for himself in which Hux smiled, perhaps leaned over the table to give him a kiss, or something equally sappy like that. His head was pounding, he felt like a cold might be coming on, and he was utterly unsure what to do with the envelope until Hux came back from his foray into the kitchenette and set down a mug of sweetened coffee in front of Kylo. 

It was the first even remotely friendly gesture Hux had made toward him in the past few weeks, and Kylo took it gratefully, noting that Hux's cheeks had a few high pinpricks of color in them and a feverish look in his eyes. Maybe the other man was getting sick, too?

"Get started on that," Hux said, brusquely, pointing to the envelope. "As I'm sure you're aware, junior associates are required to run double checks and proofreads on any relevant pieces of work in the office, and you happen to be my randomly assigned double for this one. It's for the Busch Gardens; the deadline is next Friday." 

"Okay," Kylo mumbled, sipping at his coffee and slitting open the envelope, looking on with dismay as sheaf after sheaf of paper spilled out onto his half of the mahogany, each written in painstakingly small Arial Narrow. He pulled the first stack towards himself with a sigh. 

Page 1 of 192. Kylo longed to scream.

* * *

 

It took an intense amount of fortitude and sheer willpower, along with the aid of several Red Bulls and sleepless nights, to get the entire contract proofread and cross-checked. Kylo slept fitfully, one hand on a large dictionary of legalese to help him translate the more uncommon Latin phrasing that Hux was apparently fond of inserting into documents every which way. 

That Friday morning dawned. Kylo still had 30 or so pages to get through. He dragged himself onto the subway, without bothering to put in his contacts or put on his nice blazer and slacks that he had been trying to wear to impress Hux, the strap of his messenger bag digging into his shoulder as he clutched at the no-doubt germ-riddled pole in the middle of the crowded carriage and tried not to yawn too much.

Hux was already at his half of the desk when Kylo trudged into the office, a respectable three minutes early, and plopped his messenger bag down on his chair before heading to the kitchenette in search of coffee. Hux, or Rey, who was squinting at the vending machine, had just brewed a fresh pot, and Kylo poured himself a generous mug of it, black, the way Hux took it, and took a sip. 

It was like jet fuel. Kylo's throat burned, his eyes watered, Rey was asking him if he needed assistance, if she needed to call an ambulance. The last part was contrived, but it was perhaps something she should have done, Kylo thought to himself, wincing at the bitter taste as he walked out towards his desk and towards Hux. 

"Is it almost done?" Hux asked, looking uncharacteristically nervous. Was it a big contract? For the life of him, Kylo couldn't remember. Busch Gardens had a familiar ring to it, though, and if it did, he supposed it was a large corporation with equally large legal matters. "Deadline is at 5 today."

"I know, I know," Kylo muttered, waving off his concern. "I'll get it done."

* * *

 

It was 4:37, and Kylo's eyelids felt like sandpaper. His mouth had a stale taste inside it, his headache refused to dissipate, and he was sure he had reread the past 3 lines of page 187 at least twelve times without making sense of it. 

He slogged through it determinedly, every second that went by making him drowsier, and then.

And then.

His heart rate jacked up a good twelve or so beats per minute, and he sat up straight in his chair so quickly that he banged his knee on the underside of the desk. Hux looked at him with concern, but Kylo ignored the stinging ache in favor of focusing his full attentions on the single line of Arial Narrow three quarters of the way down page 187.

"I have considered your proposal, and I have decided to accept it at your convenience. BH." 

Kylo looked at Hux, letting the remaining pages drop flutter to the desk. Hux met his gaze head on. 

"Am I to understand that this," - he held up the incriminating page - "means what I think it does?"

"And what do you think it means, Mr. Ren?" Hux asked him, sounding far more collected than he appeared. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes were bright, and it was all Kylo could do not to smack him and kiss him.

"I think it means that you want to date me," Kylo said, breathless, gleeful. 

"I think you are correct," Hux said, finally allowing a small smile to creep onto his thin lips. The tension of the last few weeks was broken, dissolving away rapidly, and Kylo could have cried with relief. As it was, he looked around the office quickly to make sure that everyone else had already gone home, and then hastily leaned forward to give Hux a fond peck on the cheek. His skin was smooth and soft under Kylo's mouth, and when Hux turned his head just a fraction to return the gesture, Kylo found that Hux's mouth was even smoother and softer than he'd ever imagined. He tasted faintly like coffee, or perhaps it was just the lingering aftertaste of the rocket fuel Kylo had been drinking all day, but he tried not to dwell on it too long as Hux reached out to thread slim fingers through Kylo's hair and tug him closer. 

"Your hair's all greasy," Hux informed him, a bit breathless himself as he pulled his hand out of Kylo's hair and looked at it with a frown. 

"Sorry, sorry," Kylo gasped back, "I've been busy all week working on the document." His eyes slid to the clock. It was now 5:01. "You...that wasn't even a real assignment, was it?"

"No," Hux said, grinning, and if Kylo hadn't been so damn infatuated with the man, he probably would have found reason to deck him one. "I just wanted to see the extent of your dedication."

Kylo began to systematically crumple up the other 191 pages of the document into tight paper balls, and would have tossed them all over the office had Hux not laid a supplicating hand on his shoulder and asked him if perhaps they should have dinner at a more casual place that night. Kylo agreed without skipping a beat, and flung the rest of the papers haphazardly all over the desk before stuffing page 187 into his messenger bag with a mental note to frame it later, as the beginning of their relationship. He'd show it to their children, to their grandkids, their great-grandkids provided they lived that long, and would have kept going along with the genealogy had Hux not laced his fingers through Kylo's and prodded him into the elevator.

* * *

Kylo nearly tripped over Hux's exotic shorthair cat, whose collar denoted her as Miss Millicent, as Hux ushered him into his apartment.

"I planned ahead," Hux explained as he pulled a bottle of chilled wine from his refrigerator and tugged out the cork with a neat pop. "Given your previously displayed eagerness to enter such a relationship, I figured that you would accept."

Kylo took the glass of wine Hux offered him. It was bubbly, effervescently sweet on his tongue, nothing like the burning Scotch Hux favored on Friday evenings. Celebratory. Needless to say, he was pleasantly surprised. 

"And what if I hadn't accepted?" he asked, watching as Hux pulled out two covered plates that he'd evidently prepared the night before and popped them into the oven. "What if I'd said the time for that had come and gone?"

"Then you would have excised the two sentences, sent in your final draft, and that would have been that," Hux affirmed, sitting down across from Kylo with his own glass of wine in hand. "You might not even have noticed it."

"I would have, too," Kylo said, affronted. "I read all the fine print very carefully, now."

"I'm sure you do," Hux said, smiling across the table at him and reaching out to pat at his hand consolingly. Kylo felt his cheeks flush, perhaps an effect of the wine; he hadn't had much to eat all day, had desolately picked at a salad sometime around 1, and it was now going on 7. "And I admire your meticulous nature. You've certainly matured in these past few weeks, which was admittedly a large driving factor for my agreement." 

"I see." Kylo twirled the stem of the wine glass between his fingers, watching the white bubbly liquid swirl inside. Hux's small apartment, clean, minimalist, and conspicuously cockroach-free, was starting to smell like roast chicken and steamed asparagus. "I was hoping you'd say yes."

"Though you do need to learn more tact," Hux said, sighing and smiling indulgently. The wine was softening him, too, Kylo could tell, his sharp corners turning into rounded edges. "You can't just blurt out things like that over a steak dinner in one of the classier bars in the city, I hope you know. Learning some subtlety would work wonders for you, although I must admit the sheer surprise of the whole affair was quite in line with your, ah...style."

"I know," Kylo mumbled, draining his glass. Hux poured him some more from the bottle between them. "I'll try to do better."

Hux looked at him, searchingly, his blue green grey eyes piercing to seemingly the very depths of Kylo's soul, and Kylo tried hard not to falter under his gaze. He needed to be confident, calm, collected, much like Hux was on a daily basis.

"It's fine," Hux said, after an indeterminate amount of time, and Kylo felt the weight lift from his chest at this sudden absolution. "I find your passion and awkward intensity somehow endearing."

As Kylo was struggling to come up with a witty retort, Hux patted him on the hand comfortingly again before standing up and heading to the oven to pull out their dinners. The roast chicken was tender and juicy, flaking lightly under Kylo's fork, the asparagus still green and crisp despite having been precooked. The wine complimented the food perfectly, and Kylo had finished his dinner and was wondering if the temperature of Hux's apartment had increased drastically in the last half hour or if it was just him when Hux stood up with a sigh, smiled politely at him, and asked if perhaps he might want to go up to bed now. 

Kylo agreed with more than a hint of enthusiasm, and allowed Hux to lead him up the stairs. Butterflies whirled madly in the pit of his belly, and he nearly tripped over his own feet as he scrambled up the stairs after Hux. Hux turned to shoot him a small smile over his shoulder that was almost lost in the dim light, and held out his hand. Kylo grabbed it, allowing himself to be pulled up the rest of the way, and hoped fervently that Hux would continue to find his so-called passion and awkward intensity endearing here, as well.

* * *

"I didn't think you were one to fuck on the first date," Kylo blurted out between kisses. His vision was blurred, Hux having set his glasses aside on the nightstand some time ago when it became readily apparent what they were about to do. Hux nipped at his bottom lip in gentle reproach before kissing away the sting, the palms of his hands warm and soft against Kylo's skin as he pushed up Kylo's old T-shirt from his university days, nimble fingers tweaking first at one nipple and then the other, grinning against Kylo's mouth as the pebbled flesh hardened under his ministrations.

"Language. How uncouth of you," Hux tutted softly, nudging Kylo in the general direction of his bed. The sheets were soft when Kylo fell into them, the mattress deliciously firm, and, as exhausted as Kylo was, he felt as though he could sleep for ages. As it was, he was far more interested in what Hux was doing, propping himself up on his elbows to watch as Hux carefully unbuttoned his dress shirt and peeled off the slate blue sleeves. The lights in the room were low, lending a soft buttery glow to Hux's pale skin, and Kylo longed to leave bites and kisses all over him. 

But that could wait. Kylo's fingers fumbled at the button and zip of his jeans, eager. He could feel his cock twitching with no small amount of interest as Hux helped him tug his jeans off, puddling into a crumpled pool of fabric by the side of the bed. 

"Someone's impatient," Hux said, offhandedly, referring to the way Kylo's fingers were already hooking into the waistband of his boxers, eager to pull them off. "Patience can be a virtue, you know. One that it might do you good to implement from time to time."

"I know, I know," Kylo huffed, wriggling his way out of the confining undergarments and kicking them unceremoniously to some other corner of the room. "But you said you found my intensity endearing or some other bullshit like that."

Hux looked surprised for all of two seconds before he laughed, a throaty rasp that sent delirious pleasure arrowing straight into the pit of Kylo's belly, and he gasped as Hux reached forward to curl his fingers around Kylo's cock with a firm grasp that had Kylo reeling. The pleasure and the wine and the utter nearness of Hux, his lips kiss swollen and all within perfect reach, had Kylo whimpering and pushing up into the curve of Hux's hand, aching for more. 

"I did say that," Hux said, with a soft laugh as he reached past Kylo to scrabble in the nightstand by the bed, returning with a strip of condoms and a bottle of unscented lube. "Good memory." 

The next few moments were breathless, impatient, hurried on both their parts as Kylo watched Hux slicking up his fingers and pressing them into Kylo, one after the other, the stretch and burn and deliciously pleasant ache making Kylo squirm in the sheets. 

"Hurry up," he snapped, whining as he shoved himself back unceremoniously on Hux's fingers. "It's not like I haven't done this before." 

Hux slapped at his thigh lightly, the sound and the quick bite of pain making Kylo jump in a not thoroughly unpleasant manner. "I'm sure you have," he agreed, and Kylo wanted to make some sort of retort, but Hux was tugging his fingers out gently, pushing himself back up on his knees to wriggle out of his own slacks and boxers to tangle with Kylo's on the floor. Kylo's eyes strained to make out the shape of Hux's cock, all but a darker shadow between his thighs in the dimness of the room, his hands working at it with slick noises and the soft crinkles of a wrapper being opened and summarily discarded to the side. The head of Hux's cock nudged lightly at his entrance, Hux's palms bracing his thighs open, and Kylo sighed softly as Hux continued to press himself in, the gentleness of his actions and the smoldering heat pooling in the pit of his belly melting into something more emotional that Kylo didn't exactly care to look at too closely at this exact moment. 

Kylo's mouth fell slack around moans and quivering whimpers of Hux's name, fell slack around Hux's kisses, his straining cock rubbing pleadingly at Hux's abdomen on every stroke in. 

"Please, Hux," Kylo begged softly, his fingers knotting in the sheets, "hurry. I want - I need -"

"I know," Hux murmured, cutting him off with another kiss, one of his hands removing itself from the inside of Kylo's thigh and wriggling itself between them to wrap around Kylo's cock again. It wept sticky smudges against Hux's fingers, and Kylo sighed, a throaty sound of relief, as he arched languidly up into Hux's hand, and languidly down into Hux's thrusts. 

His orgasm took him by surprise no more than half a dozen moments later, a soft gentle release of tension that had Hux gritting his teeth and biting down roughly into the junction of Kylo's neck and shoulder as Kylo pulsed and throbbed around him. Through the dimness of exhaustion and the pleasant ache of his limbs, Kylo could feel Hux's cock twitching heavily inside him, and it was all he could do to pat reassuringly at the sweaty curve of Hux's back before he drifted off to sleep the sleep of the just.

* * *

 

Kylo grumbled to himself as he fetched Hux a coffee as black as his heart from the kitchenette, plopping it on Hux's side of the desk with a frown. The other man was late, which was practically criminal by his standards, and the dynamic of the office had been thrown off. Snoke was looking more worried than usual, Phasma was harassing Rey, and the water coolers had cut broccoli floating in them instead of the standard strawberry/cucumber or citrus assortment. 

He hadn't texted Kylo as to his whereabouts, and - Kylo looked at the clock - now Hux was exactly seven minutes late to work. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk. Perhaps for every additional minute Hux was late, he would move over the masking tape dividing line on the desk over another centimeter. That would teach him!

Kylo was about to implement this new rule when Hux walked into the office. He was holding a package in his arms, and Kylo looked up, ready to scold him for his tardiness and for making Kylo worry unnecessarily, when Hux plopped the package into his lap. It was a good, solid weight, and Kylo's irritation was forgotten as he looked at the brown paper wrapping curiously. It wasn't his birthday, Valentine's Day, or any other sort of celebratory occasion. 

Hux plopped down into his seat, pulled out his laptop, began to work as though nothing was wrong. The office slowly resumed its natural proceedings, save for the fact that Kylo could clearly see a small smile flitting around the corners of Hux's mouth. It set him to suspicion readily, and he approached the package with no small amount of caution, wondering what could possibly be inside. 

He shook it carefully, listening to the soft shuffling of the heavy item inside shifting inside its cardboard confines. Not glass, then. Nothing breakable, it seemed like. Unless it was very small and encased in a large layer of bubble wrap. 

Well. There was nothing else for it, then.

Kylo shredded through the wrapping eagerly, leaving little bits and shreds of torn paper all over the carpet that he would have Rey vacuum up later. A solid metal placard, engraved in silver, sat inside a little cardboard box. Kylo Ren, it read in all capitals. Junior Associate.

 


End file.
